A documentary film produced by three media production students as part of their undergraduate studies has been selected by BBC Three Fresh, a BBC initiative to find new and emerging voices in documentary filmmaking.

Charley Fletcher, Kanny Tran and Laura Mobbs produced the film ‘Dear Riley’ during their second year documentary module with the film focussing on a teenage father’s life and his day to day challenges. Speaking about the motivation behind making the film, Laura says,

We felt that the subject of being a teenage parent was very relevant to young audiences nowadays, as it’s something that carries with it great emotion and struggle. We wanted to highlight this emotion and to show that even through trying situations, something good will arise, which we thought was an important message to deliver to the BBC Fresh audience… we felt that it was a story that needed to be told. We believed that telling such a story from the father’s perspective was something that hadn’t been explored enough in pre-existing media.

The group now plan to make more documentaries as they progress towards graduation and feel that their understanding of the form has fundamentally changed, as Charley puts it,

Documentary doesn’t have to be boring, it’s much more flexible than I first realised, being open minded and taking time to observe your surroundings is the key to making imaginative films.

Dear Riley is available to watch now on the BBC Three Fresh wesbite and will be screened nationally on BBC Three later this year.